Continuing my weekly article inspired by Gazzetta dello Sport, here are the performances of all Italian players operating in foreign European leagues.
Based on Gazzetta’s info, there are currently 24 Italians playing in first divisions abroad, and 17 of them stepped on the field this week-end.
The table below includes the team the player belongs to, their opponents for the week, the number of minutes they played, their contribution (goal, assist), and the final score of the game.
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ENGLAND | |||||
Player | Team | Opp. | |||
Rolando Bianchi | Man City | @Blackburn | |||
Carlo Cudicini | Chelsea | @Aston Villa | |||
. | |||||
SCOTLAND | |||||
Massimo Donati | Celtic | @St. Mirren | |||
. | |||||
GERMANY | |||||
Luca Toni | Bayern M. | @Hamburg | |||
. | |||||
SPAIN | |||||
Fabio Cannavaro | Real Madrid | @Villareal | |||
Giuseppe Rossi | Villareal | Real Madrid | |||
Christian Abbiati | Atl. Madrid | Mallorca | |||
Gianluca Zambrotta | Barcelona | Atl. Bilbao | |||
Enzo Maresca | Sevilla | @Osasuna | |||
Morgan De Sanctis | Sevilla | @Osasuna | |||
Emiliano Moretti | Valencia | @Almeria | |||
Stefano Sorrentino | Recreativo | @Getafe | |||
Marco Storari | Levante | Murcia | |||
Bruno Cirillo | Levante | Murcia | |||
Damiano Tommasi | Levante | Murcia | |||
Christian Riganò | Levante | Murcia | |||
. | |||||
FRANCE | |||||
Fabio Grosso | Lyon | Le Mans | |||
Flavio Roma | Monaco | @Bordeaux | |||
. | |||||
HOLLAND | |||||
Graziano Pellè | AZ Alkmaar | Excelsior | |||
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BELGIUM | |||||
Roberto Mirri | Mons | @Charleroi | |||
. | |||||
SWITZERLAND | |||||
Stefano Razzetti | St. Gallen | @Young Boys | |||
Andrea Guatelli | FC Zürich | @FC Aarau | |||
. | |||||
UKRAINE | |||||
Cristiano Lucarelli | Shakhtar D. | Arsenal Kiev | |||
. | |||||
RUSSIA | |||||
Ivan Pelizzoli | Lok. Moscow | @Rostov |
The most positive performance this week came from Emiliano Moretti, who scored the winning goal for Valencia in the match against Almeria. The duel between Fabio Cannavaro and Giuseppe Rossi turned decisively to the advantage of the Real Madrid defender, who kept his Italian colleague in check and went on to win the match with a whopping 5-0 scoreline.
Italian keepers also a good week, with Stefano Sorrentino pulling key saves on Pablo Hernandez and Kepa in the match vs. Getafe, as well as Marco Storari (two supersaves against Baiano) and Ivan Pelizzoli (clean sheet in the match against Saturn).
Posted in Italian Players Around the World |
Wow I didn’t know that Italy had so many exported players… guess that Serie A isn’t as good as it used to be, what do you think Marco?
There has definitely been a great exodus of Serie A players in the past year Serja, undoubtedly. But I don’t think it’s necessarily because Serie A dropped in level (which it didn’t), but more like Italian players have been made more aware perhaps of the quality of other leagues. That, and some of them were fed up at the lack of opportunity of first team play (e.g. Grosso, Donati, Maresca) so they decided to try their luck elsewhere.
Also, there’s the money factor, which would account for big transfers such as Toni to Bayern. Can’t really put Zambrotta & Cannavaro in there, because those were post-relegation sales on the part of Juventus.